What's in a Name?
by Jess Readin
Summary: A trainer and her partner reflect on the act of nicknaming. Vignette, complete.


Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon, though the trainer in this fiction is completely made up. No idea who she is.

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They sat together on the hill, watching the sun's long descent behind the trees of the forest beyond. Other trainers and their pokemon were playing together in the National Park, and the pair watched them with light humor. All these trainers were so young compared to this woman and her partner. Her hand lay on his back, fingers tangled in his white fur.

A young boy ran past the pair, calling for his Pachirisu. "Sparki!" He called and laughed as the blue electric squirrel jumped out of a bush and surprised him. The young woman had nearly nine years of experience on this trainer just beginning his journey. Seeing him with his pokemon made her especially grateful to have such a loyal partner in her Absol.

Something in Absol's eyes made her question this bond. He seemed somehow disdainful of this boy and his young pokemon.

"Absol," she said, but this seemed to make him even more agitated. He moved, only slightly, so that her hand fell from his coarse but warm coat. He didn't look at her, but at the boy and his electric squirrel.

"Oh." She whispered. "Oh! Oh, Absol…" She scooted closer to him and looked into his eyes. "I love you more than anything in this world. I honestly can't believe that after all this time you would question that." She put a hand on his shoulder, and he looked up at her.

"Sol, absol sol." His growl was low, but not threatening. She had a feeling she knew what he was trying to say.

"Do you know why I never gave you a nickname? Why I never gave any of my pokemon nicknames?" He didn't respond, but held her gaze. She took this as his signal for her to go on. "I never nicknamed you because I respected you."

He shifted his body so that he faced her and cocked his head to one side to show that he was still listening.

"Do you remember when we first met? I thought of naming you then. Something silly, to make you more endearing to the villagers we passed with their prejudices of an Absol." She reached up and stroked his face down to his shoulder the way he preferred. "But when I looked into your eyes…I couldn't do it." She laughed when she saw the look on his face, his incredulity that she would say something so sappy to him.

"Don't you look at me like that!" She smiled a bright smile that reached her eyes, the kind that showed on her when Absol completed a particularly spectacular move during a battle. "You have very unusual eyes. That maroon color isn't seen in just any Absol, let alone any of the pokemon I've ever seen. I knew I couldn't give you a foolish or cute name with those eyes. I knew that I would be unable to name you. The fact is that I knew nothing would ever be good enough for my best friend." She paused and looked into his eyes. He was still listening. "That's you, dummy." She laughed and ruffled the fur under his sickle shaped horn. He snuggled close, put a large, clawed paw on her knee, and licked her cheek gently.

She pulled a jar of PokeFood from her bag and put a couple of pieces on his paw before popping one into her mouth and chewing on it speculatively.

"I don't take it back, either. You can think and feel and decide for yourself. Why would I presume that just because I'm your trainer I could have that kind of influence over you? Even if you were just an adorable kit then." She grinned as Absol lifted his paw to eat his dinner.

"You're truly my best friend in the world, Absol. I don't know what I'd do without you." She smiled at her partner and he leaned forward to press the blue of his forehead to her own. She knew without a doubt that he was echoing his own feelings to her. She gasped as a pressure built up behind her eyelids and she briefly felt something alien to her own mind. In that moment, her thoughts were bathed in the love and trust she and Absol had built together over the last nine years.

"How'd you…?" Her eyes widened and Absol withdrew, looking satisfied. "You've been working on that for a while, haven't you?"

"Sol." He replied simply. He stood and stretched his long limbs and bumped her knee with a claw to signal that he was ready to go. She stood up and brushed the stray bits of grass from her jeans.

"Lead the way, my friend."

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A/N: Thanks for reading. It's a pretty corny vignette, but really, that's the way Pokemon stories are supposed to be. Hope you enjoyed.


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